Information-poor environments: Asian tigers - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 262

journalists (Fang, 2002 ). In addition, state control has been relaxed
somewhat and freedom on reporting has increased, although con-
trol remains especially over the more sensitive issues. 45 In entering
these nation-states, the global media, such as satellite TV, are still
strongly dependent on the Chinese (and Vietnamese) authorities, and
can only broadcast and sell under specified conditions for certain mar-
kets (Sparks, 2005 : 39-40). 46
Environmental issues increasingly are seen as nonsensitive issues,
which facilitates the revealing of environmental accidents, disasters and
routine pollutions in China. 47 Research by Li Junhui ( 2005 ) and Hu
Kanping and Yu Xiaogang ( 2005 )onnewspaper reporting on dams,
arguably one of the more sensitive environmental issues in China, and
of Wang ( 2005 )onindustrial parks illustrate that especially local news-
papers feel the pressure of local state authorities to refrain from report-
ing critically, whereas critical environmental reporting is more allowed
at a national level. Nationally, bans on reporting emerge when minor-
ity issues and national (security and economic) interests are involved. 48
Based on several sources, Yang ( 2005 ) concludes that environmental

(e.g., Youth League) or published by special organisations and agencies (such
as, for instance, SEPA).

45

As Fang ( 2002 ) and Li Junhui ( 2005 ) explain, Chinese news media are
regulated and controlled via five mechanisms, of which the first two are the
most important: government administrative system; Party committees; the legal
system; social surveillance of other parties and social groups; (self-)regulations
from associations in the news industry. Xinhua is China's leading integrated
news company, with more than eighty-four hundred employees and a president
that has the rank of minister (Battistella, 2005 ). It is state-owned and tightly
controlled, especially since the 1989 Tiananmen Square event. Its journalists
are tightly controlled and will only write critically when allowed. In September
2006, Xinhua announced further restrictions for the operations of foreign
news agencies in China, as well as for the spreading of news in China
(http://www.rsf.org/).

46

See Whittemore ( 1990 )onhow CNN managed to report globally on the 1989
Tiananmen Square event, before the Chinese authorities eventually gained
news control.

47

A content analysis by the Chinese NGO Friends of Nature among tens of
national, provincial and local newspapers showed that coverage of
environmental items in these newspapers especially increased in the second
part of the 1990s (Friends of Nature, 2000 ). This does not seem different in the
other traditional media.

48

Several Chinese journalists have been jailed following too critical reporting,
either within their country or in foreign media (e.g., Zhao Changqing in 2003;
Ren Ziyuan and Li Yuanlong in 2006).